Rhode Islanders find joy and convenience in shopping locally

Saturday

Dec 21, 2013 at 8:59 PM

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Patrick Heller enjoys shopping about as much as he does getting his teeth drilled. But on Saturday afternoon, during the last holiday shopping weekend of a shortened season, his wife, Jo Lee,...

Lynn Arditi Journal staff writer lynnarditi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Patrick Heller enjoys shopping about as much as he does getting his teeth drilled.

But on Saturday afternoon, during the last holiday shopping weekend of a shortened season, his wife, Jo Lee, 49, and his loyalty to neighborhood merchants had steered him into Frog & Toad, a boutique on Hope Street. They were shopping for Christmas gifts besides the obligatory electronic ones they’d bought for their two children, ages 9 and 11.

That’s when Heller, 50, found himself squeezed between a crush of craft displays and shoppers.

“I get claustrophobic,” he confessed as he and his wife pressed deeper into the store. “[But] we like to support the local businesses. …”

The unseasonably warm weather on the final weekend before Christmas drew a steady flow of customers into local shops along Hope Street. And despite the convenience of Providence Place mall and big-box stores, the often repeated refrain of the Hope Street shoppers was their desire to support buying local.

Erin Hartnett said she is uncomfortable with all the conspicuous consumption during the holiday season, so if she has to shop, she tries to stick to local merchants.

Hartnett is 33 and pregnant. She and her husband, a software developer who works in Boston, moved to Providence because it was more affordable and closer to Block Island, where they own a rental property.

Now, she said, she’s fallen in love with Providence — and with the Hope Street neighborhood.

On Saturday, Hartnett, her sweater tight across her belly, showed up at the toy store Creatoyvity in search of triangle-shaped crayons for their 2-year-old son. She’d heard they’re easy to wash off walls.

If it were just up to her, she said, she’d skip the gift giving altogether.

“To me, it’s more of a gift that we get to spend time together,” she said.

But it’s not just up to her. Her husband, Cully, has two nephews who were not pleased when, instead of Christmas gifts one year, she donated money to an African animal foundation.

“I think they hate me now,” she said.

“This year,” she recalled her husband saying, “I just want something they can open and will make them smile. …”

Her concession to buying is buying local. That way, she said, at least she is supporting the merchants of the city she loves.

Just down the street, Joseph DeAngelis, a real-estate lawyer who lives in Scituate, had made his annual shopping pilgrimage to Green River Silver on Hope Street to shop for a Christmas gift for his wife.

“She said: ‘just get me a nice pair of earrings,’ ” he said.

His eyes focused on silver moonstone earrings designed by Pam Foreman, a local RISD graduate.

“Mom would like those, huh?” he said to his 10-year-old son, Ben.

“Yeah!”

Just up the street, a small crowd gathered inside Stock Culinary Goods. A man in a suede blazer and round, tortoise-shell glasses held a wine glass up to the light.

Michael Cane, 54, of Providence, works for a New York-based company that imports wines from France and Italy. He was looking to buy a few things for his wife and their kitchen.

“It just dawned on me as I was running down here: I think I’ll do all my shopping locally except for a few things online,’’ he said, “which makes me feel good.”